Hugh Grant’s self-professed “freak-show era” of his career has seen him tackling roles as wide-ranging as a right-leaning historian in Netflix’s Death To… series, a thespian with a vendetta in Paddington 2, a sinister homebody obsessed with games in the new thriller Heretic and, of course, a surly Oompa Loompa in the musical Wonka.
But as different as each of those roles may be on paper, there’s one thing all of them have in common – Hugh’s unmistakeable British accent.
Speaking to LadBible, Hugh explained that he made the choice “for various reasons” decades ago that he’d be sticking with his own accent regardless of which characters he plays, opting to swerve adopting an American twang in favour of playing “a Brit who’s been transplanted” across the pond.
“I thought, ‘Look, if [the character is] American, just get an American actor’,” he said. “Because whatever I bring, I feel like I won’t bring it if it’s American.”
He admitted: “I don’t know if that was right or wrong – maybe it was wrong. But now, after three decades, I think it would have been quite weird if I’d suddenly just been American, people would have gone ‘what?’.”
The Bafta winner will next be seen in action as Mr Reed in the aforementioned horror Heretic, which hits cinemas on Friday (although select previews are taking place on Thursday, which just happens to be Halloween).
Critics have already singled out Hugh’s performance for praise, with some going as far as describing it as “one of his best” ever.